Woman who gave birth on jail floor goes to trial against county

Updated 8:08 pm, Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Imka Pope is pictured in this photo that was taken in recent months, more than a decade after she gave birth alone on the floor of a King County Jail cell. (photo courtesy Pope's lawyers).

Imka Pope is pictured in this photo that was taken in recent months, more than a decade after she gave birth alone on the floor of a King County Jail cell. (photo courtesy Pope's lawyers).

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Lawyers for Imka Pope say her case illustrates a history of inadequate medical care at the King County Jail (seattlepi.com archive photo).

Lawyers for Imka Pope say her case illustrates a history of inadequate medical care at the King County Jail (seattlepi.com archive photo).

Woman who gave birth on jail floor goes to trial against county

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In the winter of 1997, Imka Pope was 27 years old, homeless, off her medication and suffering a psychotic breakdown. She was also nine months pregnant. When she fell asleep on a Metro bus bench, she was arrested for trespassing and booked into jail.

There she spent six days in an isolated cell, where she gave birth alone - painfully, without medical help, and on the floor.

Fourteen years later, Pope's lawsuit against King County is finally going to trial next month. Pope, who suffers from a schizoaffective disorder, had taken 10 years to file the complaint, which alleges medical negligence and constitutional violations. A judge ruled this year that she had met a legal standard that stops the clock on the statute of limitations.

Lawyers for the woman say the case illustrates a history of poor medical care at the King County Jail. The downtown jail was the target of a blistering Department of Justice report in 2007, which found failures in medical assessment of inmates, suicide prevention and safeguards against jailer abuse.

"Once booked, the jail engaged in a pattern of deliberate indifference towards Ms. Pope," her lawyers wrote in a trial brief filed last week. They said Pope was clearly delusional – talking to herself in a jumble of profane words – and obviously pregnant.

But court documents show that only one staffer noted in jail records that Pope appeared pregnant. Six other staffers, including nurses and officers, took no notice of Pope's pregnancy during their interactions with her. They also made little effort to evaluate or treat her mental illness, Pope's lawyers said.

"Instead, Ms. Pope was locked in a jail cell and ignored for six days," they wrote.

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On Nov. 21, 1997, the day of the birth, Pope said she went into labor and repeatedly begged an officer for help through the intercom in her cell.

"Please help me, please help me," she said she told the officer. But the guard said he didn't believe she was pregnant, Pope alleges. Another guard making rounds saw Pope squatting in her cell and asked what was wrong. She told him she was having labor pains.

But according to lawyers for King County, the officer decided Pope was not in "imminent danger" and left to continue his rounds.

"Alone, terrified, in terrible pain and denied help, Ms. Pope gave birth on the floor of her cell," her lawyers wrote. It was the sound of her baby's cry that summoned the officer back a short while later.

King County lawyers argued the jail nurses had met care standards, which did not require a physical exam or pregnancy test for Pope. They said it was Pope who had hid her pregnancy from staffers, by being uncommunicative and verbally abusive.

"During booking, Ms. Pope was unwilling, not unable, to answer basic questions about her health status, including the question of whether she was pregnant," the county's lawyers wrote in their trial brief.

They said officers had acted reasonably toward Pope and that she had suffered no injury. They said her delivery was "without complication."

That contradicted claims by Pope's laywers, who wrote that the baby was born with a severe heart defect. They said he likely suffered neurological damage from being born without immediate medical care.

But the baby's medical claims are not part of the lawsuit. The case is scheduled to begin trial in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Sept. 12.